I came across some interesting stats from Wealthsimple: -Only 15.8% of Canadians combine their finances when they move in together. -Another 20.5% wait until they buy a home together. -And 34.5% don't combine finances until they're married. I'd be curious to know how many people combine finances after they have kids. They didn't include that metric. For my husband and I, we don't have a joint account. My husband and I have assigned responsibilities instead: I pay the property taxes, cover the utilities and water bills, and pay for our daughter's activities. He pays the mortgage and is responsible for home repairs and maintenance. We usually split groceries. That said, we also own and run a business together, so in many ways it's all coming from the same pot anyway. The lack of a joint account has never been an issue because we're aligned on our financial goals, communicate openly, and financially trust each other. I don't think there is a "right" way to manage money as a couple. The best system is the one that works for both people and allows both people to be financially responsible. My parents always had a joint account. Most people in my circle tend not to have everything combined. Financial autonomy seems to be increasingly important in today's relationships. Are joint bank accounts outdated? How do you and your partner manage your finances? Is it different from how your parents did it? If not in a relationship, what would you want to do? If you're in a relationship, I'd also love to hear why your system works for you (or why it doesn't). I have a feeling there are going to be a lot of different perspectives, and that's what makes personal finance so fascinating :)read more
Last weekend I was evacuated from the cabin that I had just bought. A fire had been spotted at 5:30pm while I was at dinner with a friend on Friday August 7, and by 8:30pm we were under full evacuation orders. It was a wake up call for me and it sure made me think about what matters most and am I actually prepared if something happens? First was safety- Can I get my family out of harms way with the needed supplies and resources. This means operating and ready to go vehicles, an emergency kit in the vehicle, and an ability to collect and leave with valuables quickly. Second was insurance- My cabin was insured but my boat tied to a buoy in front of it was not. I got lucky though because the field where the boat is stored was burned by the fire, so if I didn't have it in the water that week, I probably would have lost it. The boat is now insured.... Third was Money- Do I have access to money that I can get immediately for things like a hotel, rental car or flights? I keep a pretty low cash balance at most times so this for me was credit cards with enough room. If you don't have a credit card with 5-10K of room on it, I think it is valuable to keep some cash in a way that is immediately accessible. I thought the evacuation would last for 24-48 hours Max...... It lasted for a week. We got lucky and everything is still standing but there are a lot of people in really tough situations right now, especially in Summerland BC and the surrounding area. Stay Safe, Make sure you are prepared! Zac read more
1) Make a budget I like the 50/30/20 50% Housing / utilities / living costs 30% wants / clothing / entertainment/ hobbies / Etc 20% Saving / investing 2) starting investing / paying of debit / emergency fund 3) Get to 10k invested ASAP Why are more people not doing this ? 👇read more
Got inspired by @matt.41 and @edsam to upgrade one of my calculators. You can now choose Monte Carlo (Statistical) as the simulation method and set the strategy’s: - Expected return - Volatility - Yield - which we keep constant, since I think that’s what many people try to target and maintain This lets you see how much is being spent and reinvested. And if you want to see the implications of applying the "4% rule", you'd just set the expenses to 4% of your initial portfolio. https://karyungtom.com/monte-carlo-retirement-calculator/read more
When it comes to personal finance, the 3 big financial goals / milestones for me and my family are: #1: 📈Investments / Retirement #2: 🏠House #3: 🛻Vehicle Which are basically competing goals. Allocating money to one category, like a car payment, directly impacts our ability to invest or save for a house. So, where are we at with these goals? 🟡 YELLOW→ Investments 🟠 ORANGE → House 🟢 GREEN → Vehicle #1 📈 INVESTMENTS (🟡) For the past 6 years, from ages 29-35, there has been a heavy focus on investments. In particular, I was obsessed with maxing my TFSA. Even though we still haven’t met our investment goals, this investment category might actually deserve a GREEN 🟢. It depends on who is doing the evaluating. I am a harsh critic, so I set the bar high. Compounding interest is the 8th wonder of the world and all… The one major thing we’re still trying to achieve: Maxing my Wife’s TFSA. I like to think that I’d be satisfied with our investment / retirement portfolio once her TFSA is maxed. Contributing $7000 per year to one’s TFSA is already a pretty challenging task. Catching up on the unused room at the same time? Even harder. You can build a plan to achieve it. For example, contribute 10k a year, which implies a 3k catchup annually. But if your available TFSA room is large, then this can still take many, many years. Given our current situation: 2 young kids, and maternity leave debt. This investing goal will take time to achieve unfortunately. More importantly, making progress on the other 2 goals has become a higher priority. We have her stuff set up and automated for $500 bi-weekly contributions. Or about $13,000 a year. Or a 6k catchup per year. Which means her TFSA will be maxed in approximately ~10 years. Which is way too long imo, but I have to balance goals. #2 🏠 HOUSE (🟠) For the house, we’re thankful to have one. Our current “starter home” is still our first home. But to be frank, I’d give us a big fat red 🔴 rating on this category. When I was a young lad I would have hoped to own a home and a cottage by now. Similar to the one I was raised in. But again, the world has changed since then. Realistically though, a yellow or an orange is probably a fairer rating. I spent the first 4 years of my career completely focused on saving for a house. I didn’t even know how to invest in a TFSA at this time. This goal was met in 2018. This house was never intended to be the one to raise kids. I bought it myself about 8 years ago. It was basically all I could afford at the time on my single salary. The only real requirement I had at the time was a fenced in backyard for my dogs. We had roughly planned to stay here ~5 years. We are currently 8 years into that 5 year plan LOL. With many things like covid changing the game, it hasn’t really made financial sense to upgrade. For the recent past, we’ve instead focused on investing and popping out babies. Now with my kids quickly growing up, it's becoming more and more of a priority to move into a family home that meets our current life situation. #3 🛻 VEHICLE (🟢) For the vehicle, this became the biggest pain point in our lives. This was a RED 🔴 rating 18 months ago. At which point we finally pulled the trigger and upgraded our family vehicle. 2 kids and 2 big dogs dictated this. My wife and I are tall also, so it was like a literal clown car packing up for trips. Dogs in the trunk, kids in the back, gear in the roof tote. With car seats forcing our seats forward it was very uncomfortable doing long trips. We do 4+ hour drives all the time, so transportation is a big part of our life equation that cannot be ignored. The rise of costs in vehicles, similar to houses, was again a big factor here. Stupid Covid… Also in general, it's really hard to commit to a large car or mortgage payment when instead that could all be going into investments… We put it off for as long as we could, I drove my cheap manual car for 11 years. But eventually we pulled the trigger. I am way happier with that decision than I thought I’d be! When I initially signed the dotted line, my heart sank and I thought I had made a terrible financial decision. No regrets now. Every decision is a tradeoff though. A large car payment still negatively affects our ability to upgrade our house and our savings rate. Buying a bigger house will hurt our savings rate even more. It’s a balancing act dictated by your stage in life. Personal finance isn’t about maximizing one goal, like your portfolio. It’s about balancing competing goals as life changes. It always feels like there is a mountain to climb. Our priority in life right now is our kids, and providing the kind of life we want for them. Cheers 🍻read more
People are abusing Buy Now, Pay Later platforms and, in some cases, are using them to fund their entire lives, deferring payments on things like groceries and car insurance. It's insane! In the new video I just posted over on the reaction channel, we’ll be taking a look at some extreme cases of how people are ending up in terrible financial situations because of BNPL. Watch it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PvThi7McK00
It is easy to forget how it feels to unplug yourself from the Matrix. It’s a perspective you only really gain once you've completely removed yourself from your day to day reality. I just got back from a 10 day road trip to the East Coast. Our camping destination was Fundy National Park in NB. Camping, with no hydro, and no cell service 🏕️. Hot dogs, marshmallows, and snacks galore 🌭. The no cell service was the best part by far. The Moms were literally going nuts being unable to post to their socials, or see other people's posts. They’d sometimes get a notification for something they couldn't actually see 😂. I literally lost track of time. I didn't know what time we woke up. I didn't know what time it was at night sitting by the campfire. I felt very relaxed, and now I feel reset. In hindsight, it was much needed. It made me realize how closely I follow markets, the macro economy, and even social media like Blossom. The past year in particular has been a rollercoaster ride that is constantly hijacking our attention. Camping itself can be a challenge. Actually, it's always a challenge lol. Even the preparation is a lot of work. Especially with a 2 and a 4 year old. But it's the kind of experience that is totally worth it. The memory dividends alone cannot be assigned a dollar value!! I've come back to lots of great posts on Blossom to catch up on. Lots of food for thought. I have so many ideas for new posts, I’ve had a lot of time to think about things. But that's for later, we need to unpack and repack for stage 2 of our almost 3 week summer vacation. To tie this to personal finance: the truck, our family vehicle, continues to pay dividends. It makes these kinds of trips so much more feasible. We did a road trip last year to PEI also. Road tripping in safety and comfort, with an excessive amount of storage for activities and luxuries. “Glamping” as they say. Yesterday, we drove almost 1200 kilometers to get home in one shot. Cheers everyone 🍻 Hope you are making the most of the Canadian summer! read more
Whole life insurance is one of the most oversold products in Canada, and most people who get pitched it don't actually need it. I don't even carry basic life insurance myself right now, and that's a deliberate choice. Life insurance is there to protect the people who depend on your income, and right now nobody depends on mine. I have no kids, no mortgage, and my wife has a strong career she'd carry on with just fine if something happened to me. The day that changes, say a mortgage or a child comes along, I'll buy term insurance that week. Term insurance is built for exactly that window. You choose a term, say 20 years, that covers the stretch when your family would struggle without your paycheque, and you pay a low premium for it. It stays cheap because most people outlive the term, and once your savings have grown and the mortgage is gone, you usually don't need it anymore. Insurance is there to protect the plan. Growing your money is a separate job. Whole life insurance is permanent coverage that never expires as long as you keep paying, and it comes with a cash value that gets pitched hard as an investment. I was talking recently with someone who holds a large stock and bond portfolio in their non-registered accounts. When they pass away, those investments will trigger a big capital gains tax bill, and an advisor had recommended a whole life policy to cover it. In their case, I don't think that makes much sense. Stocks and bonds are liquid, so when the tax bill comes due, the estate can just sell a portion of the portfolio to pay it. Set that against paying steep whole life premiums every year for decades. The vast majority of the time, selling a slice of a liquid portfolio at death leaves a bigger estate than all those premiums would have. A business owner, or someone holding a cottage or a rental property, faces the same kind of tax bill at death but without an easy way to pay it. The family often doesn't want to sell the business or the cottage just to raise the cash. That's where whole life can genuinely earn its place, covering a bill on something you can't easily sell or don't want to. Whole life is expensive, and for most Canadians it simply isn't the optimal choice, even though it gets sold that way constantly. Nobody should buy a whole life policy without an unbiased second opinion first, ideally from someone who earns no commission on the sale. The illustrations look great on paper, but a lot of the growth built into them isn't guaranteed. If you already own a whole life policy, this isn't me telling you that you made a mistake. Plenty of people were sold these by someone they trusted, and in the right situation the policy really does fit. It's worth understanding what yours is actually doing and whether it still makes sense for you. Have you ever been pitched whole life, and did anyone ever walk you through what it really costs?read more
Still working through the QAFP estate material and posting the parts I think are useful. This one is niche, but it is the kind of mistake that only shows up after someone has died, when nobody can fix it anymore. Your RRSP, your TFSA and your life insurance usually do not pass through your will at all. Whoever you named on the account form gets that money directly. The will has no say, even if the will is newer and says something completely different. The tax bill does not travel with the money. When you die, your RRSP is treated as though it was fully cashed out on your final tax return. If you named one of your kids on that account, they receive the entire balance, and the tax gets charged to your estate, which means it comes out of whatever everyone else was going to inherit. Say you have a $200,000 RRSP with your oldest named on it, and your will splits everything else evenly between your three children. Your oldest receives the full $200,000. The tax owing on that RRSP is paid by the estate first, before the other two get anything, and depending on your province and your other income that year it can be a very large number. You thought you divided things evenly. You did not. Naming your spouse is the exception, and it is why most people never run into this. A registered account left to a spouse rolls over to them with no immediate tax, so nothing lands on the estate. A divorce does not automatically clear a designation you made during the marriage either. In most of the country the name on that form sits there until you go change it yourself. Quebec works differently, since designations on registered plans generally have to be made in a will there. It costs nothing to log in and look at who is actually named on your accounts. If your life has changed since you filled those forms out, and for most of us it has, that name might not be the one you would pick today. This pairs with the will post I put up a couple of days ago: one is the document being cancelled, this one is the money that never goes near the document. When did you last check who is named as the beneficiary on your accounts?read more
You should be proud of yourself. I need you to stop for a second and recognize how incredible what you’re doing actually is. Every dollar you invest represents discipline, sacrifice, planning, patience, and choosing your future self over something you could have spent that money on today. That matters! If you’re scrolling through Blossom and feeling like you’re behind because someone else has $500K, $1M or more invested, please don’t compare your chapter to theirs. They had to start somewhere too. They had to wait. They had to be patient. They had years where it felt like nothing was happening. They made sacrifices you may never see. And they’re simply further along in their journey. You are not behind. You are on your own timeline. Maybe you’re investing your first $100. Maybe you just reached $10K. Maybe you’re working toward $100K, $500K or $1M. Whatever your number is, I want you to be proud of it. Because you’re doing something that takes incredible commitment. You’re building options. You’re buying freedom. You’re giving your future self a better life. And I genuinely hope you realize how amazing that is. So stop being so hard on yourself. I’m cheering for you. I’m proud of you. And I can’t wait to see how far you go. ❤️ Keep going. Your future self is counting on you.read more
All my accounts transfered to Welathsimple this week. I decided now was the time to take out a PLOC. My cost of borrowing is 4.45% for now, (I hope to get that to 3.95% very soon). My net cost of borrowing after taxes will be 2.25%. I had wanted to invest the PLOC in 70% $XEQT 30% $FINN. For tax reasons I went with 70% $XEQT 30% $QQC Both these ETF's will rebalance themselves and will never need to be touched. My gross cost of borrowing is 225 per month. My net cost of borrowing after taxes is 122 per month. Ill also be recieving a $430 a month bonus 3% match paynent from Wealthsimple for the next 24 months. I would of liked to have set this up at the start of the year and not with the markets at an all time high but this is an investment for the very long hall bar a 1980's style return to ridiculous intrest rates. 😃 read more
This morning I realized that there are 7,000 of you following my financial journey. I’m so humbled, thank you. 🙏🏻 I remember what financially crippled felt like, stomach dropping before I even opened my banking app. Doing math at the grocery store, putting things back. That 3am anxiety where every “what if” feels like a countdown. Today looks different. Not checking my portfolio for days because I don’t need to. Booking a flight without the mental gymnastics. Standing in front of Trevi Fountain on a random Tuesday, mid-week, mid-year, simply because I can. I got here the boring way. No windfall, no hot picks, no timing the market. Just the same unglamorous decisions, repeated for years, until one day the weight was gone. I’m retired now, and my portfolio carries us further than my paycheque ever did. I don’t say that to impress anyone, I say it because I remember not having anyone show me this was possible. If this account helps even one of you get a little closer to your own “free,” I’ll consider it worth every post. Truly, thank you for being here. For reading, for asking questions, for trusting me with a small piece of your journey. This community means more to me than a follower count ever could. 🥂 Here’s to learning and growing together. read more
Why “rich” people drive 10-year-old Hondas and “poor” people lease BMWs 👀 Not a hot take. There’s actual research on this. The Millionaire Next Door studied real millionaires and found most of them live BELOW their means. Old cars. Regular houses. Zero flex. Meanwhile there’s a well-known economics study (Charles, Hurst & Roussanov) showing people with less wealth often spend MORE on visible stuff, cars, clothes, jewelry. Not because they’re bad with money. Because visible signals are doing more work when your bank account can’t do the talking. It’s not rich vs. poor. It’s INCOME vs. WEALTH. Some people optimize for how they look right now. Some people optimize for their net worth in 20 years. Same paycheck. Completely different outcomes. The quiet millionaire isn’t cheap. She’s just playing a longer game 💅 Which one are you optimizing for? read more
🎢As we enter the major earnings season in July, my portfolio has experienced extreme volatility with some major holdings experiencing daily price swings of more than 5%. It is during periods like this that a long-term investment approach becomes especially important, which will help investors take emotions out of the short-term price movements and focus instead on the long-term performance of the underlying businesses. The companies in my portfolio that have reported earnings so far are mostly showing steady growth in revenue and earnings, with some continuing to invest heavily in AI infrastructure to support future business expansions. I view this as a positive development and will discuss the details in the individual stock updates in the full post (see link in the comment). Software stocks experienced a moderate recovery in July which have helped increase my total portfolio value, but I believe my software stocks are still trading at levels far below their intrinsic values. I have continued to increase my positions in top quality holdings such as Constellation Software and Vitec Software to take advantage of these attractive valuations. Going forward as I enter the next stage of my FIRE plan, I will limit additional investments only to my registered accounts and the Smith Maneuver portfolio. All remaining excess cash flow will be redirected toward debt repayment, with the goal of reducing my fixed costs and strengthening my financial position. 📊 Here is a breakdown of my portfolio: TFSA: $193,013 -> $201,601 RRSP: $180,190 -> $194,231 ($5207 new contribution) Taxable: $582,439 -> $600,467 ---- Total: $955,642 -> $996,299 (excluding margin and options) You can find my full portfolio update using the link below, which includes additional information you may find interesting: - Updated DCF valuation based on latest earnings: $GOOGL$META$AMZN$MSCI$UNH$V$VIT.B - My Smith Maneuver Portfolio Update - All stock & option trades I made in the past month Here is the link to the full update in the pinned comment 👇read more
It’s been a year since I shared our borrow to investment program with everyone so I think it time to revisit the total performance. The original purchases of our financial assets were in 2024 and tariff Mayhem in 2025 for $NVHE. If you made a decision just to purchase the assets alone without borrowing to invest, kudos to you for following! All purchases were opportunistic and bulk buys! 12 month stats: Both $LBS and $BK have split 3 times during the past 12 months increasing your total share count yield Vs YOC. $BANK has received two significant dividend increases, also increasing you yield Vs YOC. $NVHE has received one dividend increase during the past 12 months. Total return 96.6% Yield Vs YOC 14.42% Vs 23.44% My personal stats are much higher due to the time of purchase. I did mortgage my assets at 3/4 below prime with a current rate of 3.7% I recieve T5 and T3 eligible and capital gain dividends. Dividend tax credit and ROC. All my current ROC is used to service the loan principal and purchase $UTIL. My ACB is easy to follow as I do not not re-purchase the original assets. The eligible dividends service the loan interest. All interest is eligible for and added to line 22100 in your tax return, reducing your marginal tax rate. I personally do not advocate for others to borrow to invest. Everyone’s situation is different. My situation allows me to do so and will continue to benefit me for years to come. Original post is below. Always do your own research 🧐 and analysis 💹 https://link.blossomsocial.com/7uYa/97lj9r5mread more
I started my Portfolio Line of Credit borrowing to invest through Wealthsimple on July 27, 2026. It would be with the intention of gradually borrowing more up to a maximum of $100K, to invest for at least 8-10 years unless something materially different happens which justifies ending the account earlier. So far, I have borrowed $25K and everything is invested in $XEQT. The borrowing rate is prime minus 0.50%, which is equal to 3.95% at the time of this post. My first interest charges deducted for borrowing from PLOC was $8.66 which is just added to my PLOC balance. 🟠 Updated: I will pay back ths interest monthly. (Thanks everyone who commented and shared your feedback on this topic 🙏🏻) Please note this PLOC borrowing to invest is separate from my Smith Manoeuvre portfolio. Also note borrowing to invest can be risky so please do your own dilligence and assess your own risk tolerance before implementing something similar. Anyone else who has a Portfolio Line lf Credit? What do you tend to invest in?
We covered everything from retirement withdrawals and portfolio tracking to XEQT, leverage, margin, portfolio lines of credit, the Smith Manoeuvre, and covered-call ETFs in Episode 15 of Financial KarMoe. 🎙️ Some of the questions led us down some pretty deep investing rabbit holes — and we learned a lot along the way too! 💡 Some of the biggest questions we tackle: • Is the traditional 4% retirement rule still the best approach? • Should retirement withdrawals be fixed, or should they adapt to market conditions? • How much of a safety cushion should you leave in your portfolio? • Is tracking your net worth every month actually useful? • If you already own a globally diversified ETF like XEQT, do you really need a more complicated strategy? • What's the difference between margin, a Portfolio Line of Credit and the Smith Manoeuvre? • Is leverage a smart way to increase your investment exposure — or an unnecessary risk? • Should you use distributions from ETFs to pay the interest on borrowed money? • Are high-yield or covered-call ETFs actually "safer" than a globally diversified index ETF? • How important is maintaining a clean paper trail when borrowing to invest? This episode is ultimately about one thing: learning together and challenging our own investing assumptions. 🙏 A huge thank you to everyone in the Blossom community who submitted questions and continues to make Financial KarMoe a community-driven conversation. https://youtu.be/JVzufiQIKn8?si=FKfkv1gW6-BHY9ky read more
What if your mortgage could do more than just get paid off? In this episode of Moementum Finance, I sit down with Jonah Hoyos (@smithmanoeuvrejonah), a Smith Manoeuvre Certified Mortgage Broker, for a deep dive into one of Canada's most talked-about mortgage and investing strategies: the Smith Manoeuvre™. The basic idea? Instead of simply paying down your non-deductible mortgage debt, you can potentially use the equity you're building in your home to invest in income-producing, non-registered investments and gradually convert non-deductible mortgage debt into tax-deductible investment debt. 🏠 But how does it actually work? And more importantly… how much of a difference can the various Smith Manoeuvre accelerators make? 🤔 Jonah and I go beyond the theory and do an actual walkthrough of the Smith Manoeuvre Certified Professional Calculator, using a hypothetical Canadian homeowner to see how different strategies can affect mortgage conversion, tax savings, investment growth and long-term net worth. In this episode, we cover: 🟣 What the Smith Manoeuvre is and how the strategy works 🟣 How a readvanceable mortgage and HELOC fit into the strategy 🟣 The difference between debt repayment and debt conversion 🟣 How mortgage payments can gradually create investment borrowing capacity 🟣 How the potential tax deductions work 🟣 Why proper account structure and tracing are so important 🟣 The risks of investing with borrowed money 🟣 Why it is a long-term strategy 🟣 How to determine whether the strategy may be appropriate for you 🟣 What to consider when switching to a readvanceable mortgage 🟣 The Smith Manoeuvre accelerators and how they work (e.g. Cash Flow Damming, Cash Flow Diversion, DRIP/dividend strategies, Prime the Pump, Rental Cash Damming, Debt Swap, Power of the Paycheque, Fraser Finagle) 🟣 How combining multiple accelerators can dramatically change the projected results We also use a hypothetical $520,000 mortgage to demonstrate how these strategies can affect the numbers over a 25-year period and impact your net worth based on certain assumptions. The calculator walkthrough illustrates why getting money invested and generating potential tax deductions earlier can have a significant impact on long-term compounding. One of the most interesting parts of the conversation is seeing just how differently the results can look depending on which accelerators are available to a particular homeowner. For example, the discussion shows rental cash damming dramatically shortening the projected conversion timeline in a specific hypothetical scenario. ⚠️ Important considerations The Smith Manoeuvre is not a get-rich-quick strategy and it isn't appropriate for everyone. It involves borrowing to invest, which introduces investment and interest-rate risk. Jonah emphasizes the importance of having a long-term mindset and understanding that the investment debt remains even if markets decline. The strategy also requires careful record-keeping and proper tracing of borrowed funds. The structure of the mortgage, HELOC, tracking accounts and cash flows matters, and different readvanceable mortgage products can have important differences. 🌟 Jonah has graciously offered to respond tonyour questions after youbhave eatched the video. So feel free to ask them here or on YouTube. He has also provided a link where you can try to provide your numbers so he can run the calculator based on your specific scenario. Question for You: If you could use your home equity to build wealth, would you consider the Smith Manoeuvre — YES or NO? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fy2-FfCt9t8 read more
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How do you and your partner manage your finances? If not in a relationship, what would you want to do?
